Live data from Hacker News

Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

news.harvard.edu

91–100 of 186 posts

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won’t help, if response is infinite QE and monetization of government debt: Dow 1,000,000, here we come! I was thinking deep out of the money gold calls...

QE and monetary stimulus is primarily effective at counteracting demand shocks. For example productive capacity, like empty storefront or unemployed workers, sits unused because liquidity has dried up. A worldwide pandemic would primarily exert its economic effect through supply shocks. The productive capacity of the economy genuinely shrinks. Stores can't open during a quarantine. Sick workers can't show up at the o…

Very clearly put. Thank you.

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#92
post #90
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My actual objection is that COVID is close to "corvid"

If you do find yourself or someone you love infected with corvids, I can, if nothing else, guarantee a very high karma HN post for you if nothing else. HN loves corvids.

Mostly I don't want people blaming corvids for this. They've already got enough trouble with West Nile.

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#93
post #43
post #20

Is there any betting market that is taking bets and has good volume on whether there is going to be a novel coronavirus pandemic? That seems like the only way to get some clarity on this.

If you can put aside morals for a moment, you could make a killing just buying and selling face masks for the next few months.

Good luck procuring them at any sort of scale right now. If you are in a position to do this (because you own a mask factory or you found 20 pallets of face masks in your garage or something) you probably didn’t wait for an HN comment telling you to do it :P

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#94
post #47
post #5

Yesterday I submitted this but it didn't get many upvotes.. https://towardsdatascience.com/modelling-the-coronavirus-epi... I think that reached this point is obvious that in our hyperconnected cities a containment is going to be very difficult if the R0 is 3+ and we don't shutdown commuting PS: for those interested in real-time info from experts I recommended following: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing https://twitter…

Please don't follow Eric Ding. He's not particularly qualified, and his statements to date have betrayed that he's not actually all that good at infectious disease epidemiology. I'd suggest, in place, Maia Majumder (@maiamajumder) and Tara Smith (@aetiology).

Replying with clickable links for each of these twitter accounts:

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing

https://twitter.com/MackayIM

https://twitter.com/trvrb

-

https://twitter.com/maiamajumder

https://twitter.com/aetiology

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#95
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, it wasn't anything I wasn't okay losing :)

Depending on your strike and maturity, you may not lose anything. If the entire market sells off hard, correlation will go to 1 in the slide. Index options tend to price in some expectation of this (it's called "correlation skew") for downside options. So you'll make money on three things in a slide: * delta, ie the slide itself, * vega, ie the increased expectation of volatility for the remaining duration of the opt…

Can you recommend a good source to learn more about how options trading works in real life? Id like to know how you guys generate trading ideas, come up with bet size, study market sentiments etc

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#96
post #6

>But there is some evidence — and we’re working on quantifying it — that coronaviruses do transmit less efficiently in the warmer weather. So it’s possible that we will get some help from that, but I don’t think that will solve the problem, as evidenced by the fact that there’s transmission in Singapore, on the equator. There have been several research about seasonal influenza and how it correlates with weather, like…

Hopefully the novel part isn't that it acts like the Spanish flu and thrives just as well in the spring and summer and lasts years.

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#97
post #81
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is there any betting market that is taking bets and has good volume on whether there is going to be a novel coronavirus pandemic? That would be the Housing Market. However, the biggest impact may very well be the reaction in the public towards this and that in itself would cause more avenues of betting. Like facemask filters, only so many get made, so whatever companies make that will see a share price increase, if…

The problem with face mask filter stocks (like 3m) in this case seems to be that while demand has hugely increased, ability to deliver has actually gone down. The supply is constrained by just in time delivery/minimal stockpiling, and the fact that 99% of them are made in china which has basically shut down all nonessential factories. 3m also re-brands many chinese mfg's face masks/filters, and the local chinese dema…

I just tried buying some today. It was tough to find any that didn’t seem like garbage. I found 2 cotton washable ones on amazon for way too much money. But I have a trip to Korea on Monday. So I figured it would be prudent.

My understanding is that masks offer only minor protection against getting it, but help a lot against spreading it. They don’t stop a virus but they catch the snots.

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#98
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, it wasn't anything I wasn't okay losing :)

Depending on your strike and maturity, you may not lose anything. If the entire market sells off hard, correlation will go to 1 in the slide. Index options tend to price in some expectation of this (it's called "correlation skew") for downside options. So you'll make money on three things in a slide: * delta, ie the slide itself, * vega, ie the increased expectation of volatility for the remaining duration of the opt…

I got out around 23rd Jan when I started hearing about Corona virus spread in China. Market went up and it looks like I left 10-15% of profit on the table. But as I live in Asia and I see what is happening economically in many countries now I still think it was a good decision. If the market doesn't drop in the next few weeks it will once the 1st quarter results come out

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#99
post #58
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple notes on this: - Right now, there's some ongoing research about R0 relative to humidity, and it's not promising. This includes Singapore, but it should also be noted that Singapore has an amazing public health system that will confound using it as an example in both directions. - Having written a review on the seasonality of influenza, the fact of the matter is we have very little notion of why it's seasonal…

> Having written a review on the seasonality of influenza Is one of the theories lack of Vitamin D?

Yet miami has the same flu season as Minnesota. AFAIK.

Re: Coronavirus outbreak likely now ‘gathering steam’

#100
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore also has a lot of air conditioning. Perhaps the transmission is occurring primarily indoors, away from the 30ºC heat.

Air-conditioning also removes humidity from the air. On a tangent, I'd love to see a graph of illnesses during summer before / after the widespread adoption of AC.

Someone could do a study of schools with broken ACs. That might be an easy way to study it.
Post reply on HN